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Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy

(2016/02/02) The double helix of racial and economic inequality

Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy

Jay Tomlinson

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.53.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2016

⏱️ 73 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Edition #987

Today we look at the intersection and roots of systemic racism and institutional poverty in America and the ways in which each supports and bolsters the other
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Show Notes

Ch. 1: Opening Theme: A Fond Farewell - From a Basement On the Hill

00:00:45 Ch. 2: Act 1: The Great Migration - @DecodeDC - Air Date 5-14-15

Ch. 3: Song 1: End of the World - Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin


00:08:32 Ch. 4: Act 2: Back to Baltimore Witness to History - @allinwithchris Hayes - Air Date 12-11-15

Ch. 5: Song 2: Uprising - Muse


00:12:45 Ch. 6: Act 3: Richard Rothstein on the roots racial segregation in Baltimore - CounterSpin (@FAIRmediawatch) - Air Date 12-26-15

Ch. 7: Song 3: Segregation - Rankin Scroo


00:21:30 Ch. 8: Act 4: Phil Thompson on the Historical Fight for Civil and Economic Rights - @TheNextSystem Project - Air Date: 6-30-15

Ch. 9: Song 4: N/A


00:25:17 Ch. 10: Act 5: Black College Households Lost Half Their Wealth Despite Degrees - @blkagendareport - Air Date: 8-19-15

Ch. 11: Song 5: Lesson Learned - Smooth Jazz All Stars


00:30:42 Ch. 12: Act 6: The legacy of racial, economic inequality - Economic Update w/ @profwolff - Air Date: 12-29-14

Ch. 13: Song 6: Only a Pawn In Their Game - Bob Dylan


00:43:47 Ch. 14: Act 7: Working against the Racial Wealth Gap - The F Word with @GRITlaura Flanders - Air Date: 12-8-15

Ch. 15: Song 7: Forward - Northbound


00:47:02 Ch. 16: Act 8: Narrowing the Racial Wealth Gap w/@AECFNews (Annie E. Casey Fdn) - Best of the Left Activism

Ch. 17: Song 8: Activism - Shihan


00:52:14 Ch. 18: Act 9: Racism is a tool to keep poor white people blaming POC for their problems - The Benjamin Dixon Show (@TheBpDShow) - Air Date: 6-19-15


Voicemails

01:01:32 Ch. 19: We are a defacto segregated country - Erin from Philadelphia

01:03:47 Ch. 20: Pulling the Overton window back to the left - Colby from Portland, Oregon

01:07:12 Ch. 21: Thoughts on the effects of structures of business - Jordan from Salt Lake City

Voicemail Music: Loud Pipes - Classics


01:10:33 Ch. 22: Final comments on the lack of diversity in the voicemails

Closing Music: Here We Are - Everyone's in Everyone


Activism: Narrowing the Racial Wealth Gap w/@AECFNews (Annie E. Casey Fdn)

Take Action:

Get Involved with the Annie E. Casey Foundation: Who We Help: Communities

Contact your legislators through OpenStates.org about: ”Investing in Tomorrow”

Sources/further reading:

"Could These Four Policy Changes Close the Racial Wealth Gap?” at Colorlines.org

"UN Experts Catalog Seemingly Endless List of Racial Discrimination in US” at CommonDreams

"The U.S. Supreme Court Barely Saves the Fair Housing Act” at The Atlantic

"Ending the Cycle of Racial Isolation” at The New York Times

"Obama administration to unveil major new rules targeting segregation across U.S.” via The White House

"In Fair Housing Act Case, Supreme Court Backs 'Disparate Impact’ Claims”

“Segregation Now: Investigating America’s Racial Divide” at ProPublica

Written by BOTL social media/activism director Katie Klabusich


Produced by Jay! Tomlinson

Thanks for listening!

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Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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today at squarespace.com and enter the offer code left at checkout to get 10% off. Squarespace,

0:21.4

you should. And now welcome to the award-winning Best of a Left podcast with clips today from

0:26.3

DECO DC, all in with Chris Hayes, Counter-Spin, the next system project, the Black Agenda Report,

0:32.8

Economic Update with Professor Richard Wolfe, the F-word with Laura Fonders, the Benjamin Dixon Show,

0:38.8

and our activism for today is from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

0:45.9

In Baltimore, Freddie Gray, in Ferguson, Michael Brown, and Staten Island, Eric Garner,

0:54.0

and in many other places, poor black men and boys have died in confrontations with police.

1:01.6

My guest on DECO DC today says, the social unrest we've seen in some of these places

1:07.6

shouldn't be shocking to anyone. It is absolutely predictable.

1:12.8

What we're seeing right now when we look at a Ferguson, or we look at Baltimore in this moment,

1:18.6

we have to remind ourselves that this is a screenshot at the end of a very long running movie

1:25.5

that is still not over. This is Isabel Wilkerson. She's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

1:31.7

She spent 15 years researching and writing a book that's now among the most important ethnographies

1:38.8

of the 20th-century American experience. It's the story of the mass migration of African-Americans

1:45.6

out of the South. Wilkerson's book is called The Warmth of Other Sons, the epic story of America's

1:53.3

great migration. Its name, The Warmth of Other Sons, comes from this poem she reads,

1:59.4

from Richard Wright's Coming of Age novel, Black Boy. I was leaving the South

2:05.6

to fling myself into the unknown. I was taking a part of the South to transplant an alien soil.

2:15.7

To see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains,

...

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